Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Methadone is a synthetic opiate, commonly used to help people stop using heroin. It is quite effective for some people but the ultimate goal is to stop taking narcotics completely. Methadone is more a maintenance program than it is a recovery program which is why it is not ideal. However, some addicts believe they cannot live without some kind of opiate in their life and will probably be on methadone for the rest of their days. Methadone never frees the addict from their addiction and the progression of life problems usually continues to proceed. Treatment facilities in America have started to move away from maintenance programs and are focused more on recovery, methadone has been replaced with Suboxone which has proven to be quite effective in helping addicts deal with the initial withdrawals and craving - with the hope of being weaned off when the time is right. Methadone is still very popular in other countries and has recently made headlines in Scotland, when a user made some very poor decisions that nearly cost a 10-week old baby his life.

Medical News Today reported that, "Susan Taylor, 29, from Edinburgh, Scotland has been jailed for three years for putting methadone - a heroin substitute - in a baby's pacifier (dummy) to stop him crying. Ms. Taylor admitted to a charge of culpably and recklessly causing the baby to ingest methadone, to the danger of his life in November, 2008". She rolled the pacifier in her methadone measuring cup just before placing in the baby's mouth; after sucking for about five minutes the 10-week old fell asleep and his face looked gray and his lips blue. "Lynn Cowan, 28, was also jailed because Ms. Taylor had told her she had given the baby methadone - information she failed to pass on to doctors when they took him to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children".

Doctors found a large amount of methadone in the baby's urine and they are not sure at this point if he will suffer later on in life from this tragedy. Incidents like this really show that there is no reason why drug addicts should be allowed to take their doses home to use whenever they please - with whomever they want, like for instance babies! This story is both unbelievable and sad because this probably was not the first time something like this has occurred. Methadone needs to be prescribed and monitored, not served and ignored.